“The Government People” of Miller’s Valley

My prior blog post of July 26, 2016, is a book review that discusses the lives of people living, working, and planning out their days in a small, tightly knit community.

They are trying to do their best with what they have, tied down to the places of their birth by tradition, and dealing with bureaucratic officials planning to move them off their land and out of their homes, ostensibly for “progress.”

Below is an excerpt from the prologue of the book that I reviewed, Miller’s Valley, by author Anna Quindlen.

It conveys better than any paraphrase of mine could the frustration of dealing with public (dare I say?) ‘servants’ determined to do what they are determined to do, come hell or, especially as in this case, high water:

“It was a put-up job, and we all knew it by then. . .

 

The government people had hearings all spring to solicit the views of residents on their plans.

That’s what they called it, soliciting views, but every last person in Miller’s Valley knew that that just meant standing behind the microphones set up in the aisle of the middle school, and then finding out afterward that the government people would do what they planned to do anyhow.

Everybody was just going through the motions.

That’s what people do.  They decide what they want and then they try to make you believe that you want it, too.”

The insights encapsulated in those four paragraphs, especially in the last sentence, are Scriptural in nature.  It’s been going on for centuries.

Nor is that behavior exhibited only by Washington politicians, their lobbyists, and bureaucrats.  It occurs at all levels of government, in the business world, and on the personal level.

Dang! 

Thanks for checking in once more and remember, take care of yourselves out there.

On the madness raging in these times: “The world. . . has made itself drunk on ditch water.” Anthony Esolen, Professor, Providence College.